


The Spider Elleth

by FactorialRabbits



Series: OC studies [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spiders, of an OC, spiders of mirkwood - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 12:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17960648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FactorialRabbits/pseuds/FactorialRabbits
Summary: The complicated relationship between spiders, and an elf who hunts them. Written as a series of short paragraphs.





	The Spider Elleth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for B2MEM 2019, day 1 (G48). Prompts covered: Spider, Animal Companion

Pelinelwen hates spiders. 

This is, to a greater or lesser extent, true.

Everyone in Mirkwood hates or fears the spiders in some measure. Or at least they do these days - once the Greenwood did not have an infestation. Once it was beautiful and fair, and there was not a death trap around every corner.

She is not the first or the last to lose a loved one to the creatures, but still she loved and still lost to them. It is hard to find one who has not.

Young and barely of age, she swears her vengeance upon the spawn of Ungoliant, dedicates her life to purging them from the earth.

It’s not exactly conventional, but an oath is an oath.

She trains, she studies, she learns. 

* * *

Pelinelwen uses spiders.

And not just for psychoactive ingredients.

It is said an elleth is just as strong as an ellon, near indistinguishable from such, until they put a part of themselves into the creation of children. 

If she actually believes such a thing is a matter of debate, but it is useful to Pelinelwen; if one were to say ‘from marriage comes children, and if children I bare, the wrath of my vengeance shall be diminished’ one might be pitied, but everyone will think they understand why you remain loveless even now.

Even if to say that is the whole reason is absolutely a lie.

* * *

Pelinelwen tolerates spiders.

At least as well as any other elf you may find.

She would never admit to it, but there comes a time when the hatred burns away. It's not sustainable, in the end, regardless of whether or not it is good for someone. 

From the ashes of the hatred comes something else; it burrows and shifts and is ignored for a long time.

But in the end, you cannot ignore such things forever.

* * *

Pelinelwen studies spiders.

Others think it a little creepy. Or worse.

It starts with a particularly messy kill, one which cuts open and wide the creature’s abdomen. Curious, she pulls it apart.

Within a few months of making her first observations, she has started dissecting her kills, studiously recording every part and function, taking venom samples - both for her own studies and to help healers make antidotes - and comparing the differences between types. She has no aptitude for studying, but with time and effort and dedication she does it well enough. 

If home asks, she is studying ways in which the threat may change or develop. Know thy enemy, and turn its strengths to weaknesses. The reports she sometimes brings back are useful, and their use justifies her travels more-so than anything else. At least, that is what she tells people.

Really, she just thinks spiders fascinating.

* * *

Pelinelwen keeps spiders.

It begins, as things often do, as an experiment.

An egg, removed from its nest before birth, hatched and raised to try answer the question ‘are these fundamentally evil, or is it learnt’.

After a few experiments Pelinelwen is forced to conclude that, yes, any spider of Ungoliant’s blood is absolutely and completely evil.   
But those that are not? Those are only evil when raised beside Ungoliant’s spawn, otherwise attacking only under threat.

Many of them do not even have the means to defend themselves.

* * *

Pelinelwen adopts spiders.

She even keeps one in her pocket.

It is a little one, not of the sort that can cause any harm; she sort of understands why people are still scared, but knows it does not have means to attack her. 

The spider comes from the Prancing Pony, of all places. Pelinelwen had been passing through, and heard a commotion. She put down her wine, stepped around a corner and found the barkeep trying to hit a spider with a book.

She scoops up the little one, glares at the barkeep and sets on her way.

It was not as though the wine was any good, anyway.

* * *

Pelinelwen loves her spider.

Whilst she rescues it on instinct, they come to an understanding.

At least, that is what she tells people. It is not as though she and this tiny spider, not quite as big as her thumb is wide, can communicate in any language. But the little one seems happy enough to be warm and fed, even as she is dragged across middle earth, and Pelinelwen enjoys having something like company.

By this time, she has been travelling alone for a very long time. She has met people and made friends along the way, and she visits them and home frequently, but there is still weeks and months on the road or in a swamp somewhere trying to work out where she went wrong.

In some ways, it's more a companion on her quest than she’s ever had before.

A tiny, little, spidery friend.

* * *

Pelinelwen mourns spiders.

And not just her spider friend, when that friend grows old and dies.

Those she raised for experiments she mourned as she turned her spear against them, though recognising the emotion at the time was near-impossible. Those she kills in the field, less so, but the more she becomes convinced the being evil is a corruption of the music, not the intention of it, the worse she feels about that too.

She keeps killing them, of course, for they are still evil and still a threat.

But she cannot help but see proof of the marring of Arda in their very existence.

And to think once she had not believed in such things.

* * *

Pelinelwen is defined by spiders.

More so than anything else.

Whether it be the little spiders she rescues - the most she has ever carried at once is five - or those she kills, or simply the amount of knowledge about them she has gathered in well over a millennium of dedicated if talentless study, if she has a reputation in a place, it will almost always be something to do with them.

Even at home, in Mirkwood-once-Greenwood, people recognise her as ‘the obsessive spider elleth’ first and by her parents or other achievements later.

Sometimes she stops and thinks about this entire affair; considers the fact her life has been dedicated to a single species and path, one feared for very good reason, for nearly as long as she has lived. And not only that, that the only reason her life is so defined by them is, as an adolescent, spiders killed her beloved father and her closest friend.

She is not really sure how to feel about that.


End file.
